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You could just as easily walk up to a kid who's drinking a glass of orange juice smack the glass out of their hand and say "Guess you care more about drinking juice than you do about spreading the word of christ".

I'm related to people like this, my uncle and I were doing some handiwork and down the street we hear people at a bar watching a football game : uncle: "I wish they'd get that excited about the lord." me: "How do you know they don't?" He's just completely one dimensional to me, you can't do anything else but worship god. My aunt bad-mouthed Lance Armstrong because he doesn't "ride for Christ" or something.

Ugh, this is like Christians who believe that all secular music is the devil and only Christian bands are ok to listen to.

I mean, I wouldn't listen to any band that released album after album of songs about the same exact thing. It would get boring. In my (agnostic) eyes, God is supposed to be in your heart all the time, you shouldn't have to consciously focus on him 24/7 and never do anything else.

The True Christian (tm) philosophy states that you should have no loves or desires above God. This is why it's seen as being True Christian to be pious while grieving for a dead family member, starving, tortured, insert traumatic state here

There are several flavors of Christianity that buy into the whole "faith healing" thing (i.e., if you have faith, you'll be healed). This is usually coupled with an overall belief that one need only "choose" to receive a gift from their god in order to receive it (again implying that one need only have faith that said god will deliver).

It makes for a nice scenario in which their god is not responsible for the bad that happens to them (he wants to help after all, you're just doing it wrong) and totally responsible for the good things (he was offering all along).

I really feel like the point of this sermon is obvious, if stupid, but I'll be damned if I can see what it is. Is it "why the fuck are you saving the fish instead of going out to turn your friends onto Christianity?"? If so, why the fuck are you sitting around in church instead of going out to turn your friends onto Christianity? Why the fuck are you brushing your teeth, or eating a meal, or getting some sleep, instead of going out to turn your friends onto Christianity?

Close, but not quite. I'm pretty sure it's "Why do you freak out so much at fish dying if you don't freak out at the prospect of your friends dying and going to hell (at any moment)." With the implied "freaking out about your friends dying" action to be witnessing to them constantly. And "at any moment" because churches like these love to tell stories about how someone said they would get saved when they got home and died in a car accident on the way home or something.

Okay, that makes more sense. Still bat-shit crazy ("Next week we'll be stamping on puppys' heads, and if you try to stop us, you don't care about spreading God's word, you heathen shits!"), but at least I can see the link. Cheers.

EDIT: For extra points, read the brackets in the voice of Alan Partridge.

I had one 'lesson' at a church camp ( http://youthwave.net/ ) that involved telling all the girls to line up and rank themselves by attractiveness. The girls at the end were crying, of course. It was supposed to teach us how 'the outside world' puts us on some 'ladder'. But not Jesus, no. None of that here.

Nobody seemed to realize it was fucked up at the time, though... it took me several years for it to even occur to me that these 'lessons' weren't always the best ideas. The cult mindset is strong.

When I was a kid, my parents had me attend a short, religious summer camp. Looking back, I'm not sure if I got lucky (because I keep hearing about this stuff more and more), or if it's rarer than it seems. All that camp would have needed was one person with some outlandish beliefs, a good sense of charisma, and they could have really screwed with a lot of kids' minds. My friends and I could have come out very different, which is kind of a scary thought.

Luckily it wasn't anything like these brainwash camps. I did catch a crab, though.

"Look Lucy, I know you want to believe you're beautiful but let's face it you're quite fat around the thighs and middle, you never wear cloths that fit properly and that with that crooked nose as well I have to agree I have to agree with the others, you're the most ugly girl here."

nothing shatters a young girl's self esteem like being told they're ugly, and a girl with no self esteem is very easy to manipulate and control. it's church camp, you know, kind of the point. they aren't stupid. just terrible people.

Wow. The worst part of that anecdote is that /the counselors actually forced kids to do/ what they said the outside world does to people. This is like the counselors making all of the kids huff glue and saying, "see, the outside world makes you all huff glue, but not Jesus," when in fact the counselors are the ones being the assholes.

I went to a mission camp thing back before I was atheist. It was actually a decent enough trip because we were able to fix up an underprivileged house for the family that lived there.

The problem was whenever we weren't working on the house we were back doing stupid jesus exercises. There was one point where they turned the lights off in the gymnasium we were in and set up "jesus stations". One of the stations required you to rest a ~100 pound wooden cross on your back for two minutes (originally they said we had to carry it around the gym but people couldn't do that). Another one had a large wooden cross with fake/prosthetic hands and feet attached and we had to get a hammer and nails and actually nail the hands and feet into the cross. While we were doing that, nearly all of the camp counselors and adults were crying and they were playing "Passion of the Christ" on a large projection screen. I was about 14 or 15 at the time.

It was so fucked up and disturbing, and we were all forced to do it or they said we would be sent back home (I was half the country away from home). I ended up doing it and still gives me shudders down my spine thinking about it.

I had something similar happen at church camp when i was about 10. We were separated into these groups of about 20 and each group came up with unique name and we made a flag. Back then I had a bad habit of picking my nose ... just one of those weird things that kids do. Anyways, the group decided to name themselves the nose-pickers and our flag had a picture of a guy picking his nose. I thought it was a bit embarrassing but went with it. So last day of camp comes and there was a big awards ceremony thing in the auditorium. Like 400 kids and staff. They gave the group flags to members of that group who most represented the theme the group chose. Obviously I was selected for mine and I've never been so humiliated to this day. It felt like they were saying to me your weird we don't want you here. After that I was too afraid to even be friends with any of those people.

I went to a religious high school, and I remember having an assembly similar to that. Except the speaker picked one girl from the front row of the auditorium and made the point that God loved her even though she was flat chested.

I can still recall old Mister Barnslow getting out every morning and nailing a fresh load of tadpoles to the old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and round, like a wheel of fortune, and no matter where it stopped he'd yell out, 'Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!' We all thought he was crazy. But then, we had some growing up to do.

And to take this one step further, one of the main functions of religion was to rationalize insanity. So when little Obed gets hit on the head and starts muttering to himself and killing kittens, it's because a demon took him over. And when everyone suddenly starts tripping balls for no identifiable reason, it's because you are under spiritual attack.

We didn't have an explanation for mental illness or neurological disorders until pretty recently and they fit in really well with the Christian mythos. It would be hard for anyone to be an athiest in the 1400s with all the evidence to the contrary.

...the point however was made that they care more about .15 cent feeder fish than they do about their friends dying w/o Christ

Possibly because feeder fish are real and you are making them suffer needlessly right in front of children. I could use the exact technique and be all amazed at how kids care more about these tortured kittens than they do about mighty Thor saving them from the Jotuns

But, you see, they don't have souls. Animals are put on Earth by God for our disposal, even if it is wanton and cruel and intended to prove a point that small children won't get. Genesis told me so. Amen.

And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18)

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. (Luke 10:19)

That's the control factor. Fear. Without fear, there is no control, no religion.
It's not about "do good and be rewarded". It's more along the lines of "believe in god and don't fuck up or you will burn in hell for all eternity."

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

There are plenty of religions that don't entice members by fear, and there are plenty of Christian churches that don't use these methods.

It's unfair to take a shot at religion as a whole, or even just Christianity as a whole, because this one guy is nuts. It's like calling all Muslims terrorists because a dozen of them were responsible for 9/11. If 12 redditors decided that burning Vatican City to the ground was a good idea, I'd hate for people to assume all redditors were arsonists.

My church, at least, teaches that we are to seek to do good things rather than seek to avoid bad things. If your base purpose is to glorify God then you seek to do things that bring him glory. There is no need for fear to entice you.

This shouldn't need to be said but I'll say it anyway that this episode is not illustrative of any Christian dogma I have ever seen.

This person is displaying completely immoral behaviour and needs to be removed from anywhere that has children. Whatever "church" advocates or permits this type of behaviour needs to have the smack laid into them.

The silver lining here is now these kids have seen firsthand the cruelty that comes from subservience to a damn book. It's sad and unfortunate that the kids had to be traumatized for it to happen. Hopefully parents realize that this shit isn't healthy and pull their kids out of the program immediately.

When I was a kid, my mom would always have to correct all that I'd been taught at Sunday School on the drive home. "No, sweetie, unicorn horns aren't of the Devil. No, computers aren't the Antichrist. No, Native people aren't all worthless, drunken losers."

Although, to be fair, that last item wasn't in Sunday School, it was the topic of a sermon.

The point he wanted to make was that they should put at least the same amount of effort, preferably more, into converting their friends to Christianity.

The point he actually made is that he's an asshole.

Finally, this demonstration was for children, so it's not like they actually should be spreading the word. They likely don't know what it means to be Christian, let alone if they want to be one or not. They should be just out playing with their friends and being kids. They can figure out religion as they get older.

This is fucked up on so many levels. Why don't we all go drown cats as a way to indoctrinate children and make them spread religion.
And since when is the value of a life measured in coin? It's OK to needlessly torture and kill $0.15 fish, but a $0.30 fish's life is more valuable?

This seems to be a prevalent theme in the lives of my religious colleagues. They are the least compassionate people I know.
(see also: ritual butchering of animals by jews, muslims etc)

The earth is for us to use up, the animals and plants for us to take, and it's not necessary to think far ahead (preservation, conservancy, climate etc) because god/christ/whatever will take care of that.

What the fuck was the lesson? I don't understand, were they supposed to let the fish die and go on with the lesson? What was the need in killing some fish? This would scare the shit out of my niece (she has gold fish, hamsters, etc.) They should water board him.

I work for a fish store that sells $0.13 feeder fish. One of the big "PET" stores (not PETLand, but one of the other big ones) and I will not sell more than 20 feeder fish at a time due to stupid shit like this.

I get people asking to buy 100 feeders at a time so they can do stupid shit like use them in shot glasses at parties (wtf?), put them in small bowls to use as center pieces for wedding tables, etc.

I'm not anything like a PETA person... but killing fish for no reason is stupid, no matter the cost of them.

I don't know about you, but regardless of the people, I wouldn't want to be responsible for a bunch of morons sending death threats to them. Besides, if they took those threats seriously, they could have the messagers investigated, and it would be even worse if they found out where they were all coming from. It's to prevent a lot of drama, especially legal drama.

So, we're supposed to ignore our natural urges of compassion and humanity and take no action in our entire lives that is not directly related to spreading the word of or worshiping Jesus. Seriously, don't even step out of bed unless taking that morning piss is part of your Mission.

Tell this man (or woman?) that there is a significant difference between making a split-second decision on a matter of life and death and converting friends to a faith. Friends who, by the way, are not yet dying. The urgency is not there. Besides, even if these kids are soliciting to their friends, it takes time. This is a live-action example of a straw-man argument. You cannot compare what he/she is attempting to compare and is using confusing devices to make them seem related. Shame on him. This is child abuse. And fish abuse.

The minister who did this is completely unable to understand why this might bother people. He accuses people of missing the point, defends his actions, and basically doesn't see why this could possibly be bad. Looking at his personal webpage and profile pictures, he's just...weird.